


Hogwarts: A Secret Society

by NebulaEdwards



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Death of the Author, Good Slytherins, Headcanon, Hogwarts Inter-House Friendships, Literally ignore all canon, Multi, Non-Linear Narrative, OC narrator - Freeform, Original Character(s), Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-01
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-13 16:07:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29778672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NebulaEdwards/pseuds/NebulaEdwards
Summary: A series of tales and exposés surrounding Hogwarts, and the life within. It will mainly be focused on the houses and their ways of working, but who knows? Perhaps you may find something within these articles you didn't know from your own days at Hogwarts, or learn something about yourself you never knew. Truly, what the reader finds within a piece is one's own experience. Enjoy, dear reader.





	Hogwarts: A Secret Society

**Author's Note:**

> I thought, to start with, I would show you where I reside. I do not fear my identity being uncovered; I have my ways of staying anonymous. Enjoy this exploration of the Slytherin Common Room.

The Slytherin Common room itself is a massive set of tunnels and burrows, each with various aesthetics, purposes and moods. Slytherins are creative, and adaptable, so their common room is as well. The common room others know, is a decoy, with the actual entrance being a large bookshelf, where an array of books, each one denoting a student who holds an identical copy. The books serve as their keys, and, should a student forget their book or lose it, it will magically be returned to the shelf, whilst the copy on the shelf can act as a replacement key. Any outsider trying to steal a book will be turned into snakes for anywhere from an hour to a week. It is inconvenient, but it does deter any would be intruders. The actual common room is similar to the decoy, in style and decor only, but, as opposed to two opposing doors labelled “Girls” and “Boys”, there are several doors, each one made of smooth black mahogany with polished silver handles, leading to several rooms and hallways. There is one door directly opposite the entrance simply marked “Dormitories”, that leads to students' individual dorms, usually a large room shared by 3 or 4 of the students each year. There is, on average, around 8 rooms per year, and they tend to become more personal and unique as the years go by, until the final year, when the rooms return to their original forms, ready for a new owner. Should a student wish to visit another student's dorm, then they will need an invitation in the form of an item personal to that student. Alternatively, the student can take “the long way round”, which requires entering the 3rd door on the right of the fireplace, and manually finding their dorm in order to pay them a visit. As for the other doors, excluding these two, they lead to several different enchanted rooms, each serving an individual purpose.  
One of the rooms is a small drawing room, decorated with posters and memorabilia of several pop and retro icons. There is a small table, upon which there is a brown leather bound record player, and a collection of vinyl records. The player has three settings, instead of speeds: “atmosphere”, “mood”, and “record”. Each setting has a different function: “atmosphere” provides the room with an appropriate soundtrack, no record required; “mood” captures the mood of the user, and plays music to match or compliment, in a similar fashion to the “atmosphere” setting; and “record” simply plays the record placed on the table. It is most popularly used by musicians and study groups, as the room is quiet and mostly soundproof. It is a fact of life that nothing can stop teenagers when they set their mind on it, there has been more than one coupling in this room. The room is, like every room in the caste, enchanted against those with bad intent, though, so luckily there is little chance it has been the scene of any tragedies.  
Another room is more of a viewing deck, with a few sofas and pillows in front of a massive window showcasing the lake. Many believe the depths of the lake are murky and hideous filled with evil merpeople and the ominous giant squid, when, in actuality, it is lit up by a mixture of bioluminescent creatures, hippocampi, kelpies, kappas and even a gargantuan bake-kujira, a translucent ghost whale, it’s skeleton often visible against the night sky. Few believe the bake-kujira actually resides in the Great Lake, but since Hogwarts joined the International Schools of Magic Transfer Scheme, many students have friends or older siblings who attended Mahoutokoro when the whale washed up on the beaches as an infant. Unable to return it to the ocean, where it would likely live an eternal life of misery, the Board of Governors opted to relocate the infant ghost whale to Hogwarts’ great lake, where it grew to adulthood, with the assistance of gamekeeper and Professor of Care of Magical Creatures, Rubeus Hagrid. It can often be seen swimmingly gently along the lake, and will regularly visit the viewing room to spend time with the doting students who visit it. More than once, in the summer, students will cast a Bubble Head Charm and dive deep into the lake, to visit the creature they see in person. The viewing room is popular with nervous students and book lovers, as the quiet, calming tones of the lake ease them in a state of comfort no other room can quite provide.  
The most popular room, aside from the main common room, is the ballroom. At the bottom of a long set of stairs, the ballroom is a huge room with high ornate ceilings carved with icons of the Slytherin House, from legends like the Great Merlin and Morgana, to more recent additions such as Regulus, Sirius and Andromeda Black, Horace Slughorn and, controversially, Draco Malfoy. The walls and arches of the ballroom are painted white, in order to complement the deep green marble that makes up the floors. The arches reference the rooms location, with stone Kappas holding glowing green lanterns, to add to the soft glow the charmed windows leading to the lake provide. There is a small stage at one end of the ballroom, alongside which there is a bar, stocked with the finest wines and whiskeys students from richer families could sneak in. Unlike the Gryffindors, who tend to throw all out ragers, or the Ravenclaws, who like to host boozy book club meetings, or the Hufflepuffs, who don’t really throw parties but rather sit together and drink, smoke and talk, the Slytherins prefer to throw more elegant, refined parties. The ballroom has been the scene of many legendary events, such as the Inter-House Drinking competitions, several high stake duels, and even one 3 day triathlon, the events being "Drinking", "Dancing" and "Freestyle Ballgown Breakdancing", and is the pride and joy of any Slytherin student. The ballroom has a second entrance, inaccessible unless you are accompanied by a Slytherin student, that allows them to host other houses without revealing their own secrets; the main entrance disappears during balls. Once a year, the Slytherins hold a Masked Halloween Ball, which has become an important staple in the social calendar, often due to the extravagance of the costumes worn. It is rumoured the tradition was started by Regulus Black, who, taking a page from his older brothers book, found and restored the ballroom, and hosted the ball dressed in a glorious ball gown belonging to his mother, his face painted so carefully, he was only recognisable by the locket hung around his throat, now proudly displayed above the fireplace of the main common room.


End file.
